


Witchy Business

by satonawall



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 18:25:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3820360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satonawall/pseuds/satonawall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Witch AU: Santana lives peacefully and grumpily in a cottage in the middle of the woods. One day, Brittany comes a-knocking to buy a potion to forget her lover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Witchy Business

Santana had just settled in a comfortable position by the fire, the book of ancient runes Mercedes had sent her opened in her lap and ready to be deciphered (the ancients were ridiculous with their self-importance maybe, but they still had some of the best hexes for pranks), when there was a knock on the door.  
  
There was only one reason that ever happened unexpectedly.  
  
She cursed quietly, set the book aside, stood up, adopted her fieriest witch look, and said, “Come in!”  
  
The villager who stumbled in – a young, beautiful blonde – was indeed carrying a very large pumpkin and a basket of apples.  
  
“What do you want?” Santana asked.  
  
The blonde gave her a dazzling smile before her attention was captured by the interior of Santana’s cottage. That was not unusual; most villagers visibly shuddered when they even glanced in the direction of her ingredients cabinet, and Santana had been making cherry jam that afternoon so the table probably looked like she’d slaughtered a cat. This one, however, appeared genuinely curious.  
  
“I’m Brittany,” she said, turning to close the door behind herself and walking up to Santana, offering her hand.

Santana blinked – that had never happened before – but she wasn’t quite so surprised she’d have completely lost her manners.  
  
“Santana.” She raised an eyebrow. “But given that you walked through the whole forest to find me, I assume you already knew that.”  
  
“I did,” Brittany said. “I just thought it’s polite to introduce yourself. Your cat spat at me when I opened the gate. I think it’d get on really well with Lord Tubbington. He also enjoys spitting at people.”  
  
Good old Breadsticks. It always knew when Santana wanted to be left alone. She made a mental note to give it cream instead of milk that evening.  
  
And anyway, different as Brittany’s behaviour was, it was still very obvious what she’d come for.  
  
“You didn’t come here to talk about cats. What sort of witchcraft have you come to buy?”  
  
Brittany’s gaze dropped down on the floor, and for the first time, Santana noticed the bags under her blue eyes.  
  
“I would like for you to take away my heartbreak.”  
  
Ah. Of course.  
  
Most people in Brittany’s predicament usually came in asking for a new love (Santana sent them away, telling them that love potions were abhorrent and should they feel the need to go to some other, less scrupulous witch for them, they should also know they rarely worked out at all) or for revenge on their past lover (she listened to the stories and sometimes delivered). The ones who asked for the exact same thing as Brittany usually left dissatisfied because Santana had no way around telling them exactly what she was going to have to tell Brittany.  
  
“It will cost you more than you think.”  
  
Brittany looked at the pumpkin. “I will give you anything I have. I was meaning to join a band of troubadours anyway.”  
  
“No.” Santana swallowed. “I didn’t mean that. There is no potion that can take away your sorrow like that and leave you intact. You can only cure heartbreak by forgetting it, and a potion doesn’t discriminate in where it extends its effects. I can make you forget the time you spent with your lover, but if you leave and then will have to come back to ask me where your home is, I will have to remind you that I warned you because you will not even remember that.”  
  
Brittany tilted her head, fixed her eyes at the jar of mandrake roots by the cauldron and thought for a moment.  
  
“Everyone always tells me I never learn anything anyway,” she finally said. “Will this be enough? I wasn’t joking about giving you all my stuff.”  
  
Santana eyed at the basket. “That will be more than enough. Come back in a month, the potion brews for a long time.”  
  
“Can I stay here?” Brittany asked, her lower lip protruding a little as she waited for the answer. “I don’t want to go back to my town for a month. I will work for you the whole time if you want.”  
  
Santana pursed her lips. The idea of human company was not particularly enticing, but contrary to legend, witches did have a heart, too.  
  
“Fine” she said. “There should be space for you to make your bed in the attic.”  
Brittany jumped on her heels, excitement winning over sorrow on her expressive face.  
  
“Thank you!”  
  
“Thank me when the potion’s done.” Santana spared a longing look for her book and turned on her heels, beginning to pull out ingredients and smaller cauldrons out of her cupboards.  
  
—  
  
It turned out that Brittany was not the sullen and moody companion Santana had expected her to be. As Santana began preparing the ingredients, Brittany set to work on the pumpkin, perhaps a little overly careless for someone using a witch’s tools in a witch’s work space, but nevertheless hard-working and quite talkative.  
  
“You can just wash the table with water before you get to work,” Santana said as Brittany was moving her work onto the table. “It’s just cherry.”  
  
“I know.” Brittany took a deep breath. “It smells really good.”  
  
Santana swallowed, the words coming out before she’d realised it. “I made jam today.”  
  
“I love cherry jam,” Brittany said. “Lord Tubbington always eats all of it, though, so I rarely get any.”  
  
Santana focused on cutting up the beech leaves, but that evening, after she’d set out a bowl of cream for Breadsticks, she went into her cellar to fetch a small jar of cherry jam and set it in front of Brittany.  
  
—  
  
“This is nice.” Brittany dropped another handful of herbs into the basket. “I do a lot of weeding when I work as a farmhand, but it’s really not as nice because I always feel bad for the weeds. It’s not their fault that Mr Schuester doesn’t want them on his fields. They just grew where the wind took them.”  
  
“Don’t get too excited,” Santana said, but she couldn’t really manage to hide her smile. “I don’t use these a lot, so we shouldn’t pick too much. There’s no use to keep it on the shelves until it goes bad.”  
  
On their way back, they stopped at the small brook that ran through the forest. Brittany reached in to fill her cup with water and offered it to Santana.  
  
“Everyone always says that water is blue, but I can see through this and every other stream I’ve ever seen was more brownish. It’s weird how everyone can say something even though everyone can see it’s not actually true.”  
  
“I’ve seen blue water once,” Santana said. “It was perhaps the most beautiful place I’d ever been to.”  
  
She told Brittany of her travels and of the mysterious lake in a valley where she’d met other witches with tales of water the colour of emeralds (Brittany didn’t know what emeralds were, but she thought the moss on the other side of the brook had to be a more beautiful shade anyway), and her stomach made a small flip when Brittany looked at her from under her eyelashes and laughed at a joke Santana made.  
  
She could get used to this, she thought to herself, and immediately regretted the thought.  
  
—  
  
“You should take a break.” Brittany leaned on the counter next to where Santana was hunched over the cutting board making sure the mushrooms were in as small pieces as possible. “And that looks ready anyway.”  
  
“Don’t come complaining to me if you choke on one of them,” Santana said, but she did measure out three handfuls and throw them in the cauldron.  
  
“That won’t happen.” Brittany flitted to the other end of the table and fetched the bowl where she’d put the biscuits she’d baked. “You should have one. You’re always grumpy when you forget to eat.”  
  
“I’m not.” Her voice came out a low mutter and obstructed by the sound of her chewing on one of the biscuits anyway.  
  
Next thing she knew, Brittany had coaxed her to sit down by the fire and was explaining to her, in great detail, about her grandmother’s old pottery kiln and the plants she used to draw on the things she’d made.  
  
Santana stretched her legs, took another biscuit and counted, in her mind, the days until she’d lose all of that.  
  
—  
  
The potion took a longer time to thicken than usually, and after stirring it for four days there grew a small hope in her heart that she’d have done it wrong, missed a step while trying not to smile at something Brittany had said.  
  
But on the seventh day, not very much before the time limit after which Santana would have officially declared the potion a failure, she emerged from her room to see the potion so thick she barely managed to pull her ladle out of the cauldron.  
  
It would be ready that night.  
  
Santana took a deep breath, fetched a gobletful of water from the bucket Brittany had brought in the previous night and poured it into the cauldron.  
  
Above her head, the footsteps on the attic indicated that Brittany was awake.  
Santana closed her eyes, gathering her strength before Brittany would make it downstairs.  
  
—  
  
“The potion’s ready,” she said that evening when it had become runny again, possible to put into a mug and drink.  
  
Her back was turned to Brittany, so she couldn’t see what she looked like making the noise she did.  
  
Santana willed the tears out of her voice and squared her shoulders. “Please don’t drink it.”  
  
Footsteps. She couldn’t feel Brittany close to her, but at least she’d come closer. Maybe Santana would have known how much closer if she’d been able to open her eyes.  
  
“Whoever you loved, they’re not worth it,” she said, shoulders hunching back without her being able to do anything about it. “You’re- You’re so special and wonderful, Brittany, just as you are, please don’t take away anything from that, please don’t leave me, pl-“  
  
“Why would I drink it?”  
  
Brittany’s voice came from close by, and Santana’s eyes blinked open, taking in Brittany standing not a few feet away from her.  
  
“Because you’ve been waiting for over a month to drink it,” Santana said, unable to look her in the eye. “Just, please- Don’t.”  
  
“I won’t.” Brittany stepped a little closer. “I don’t need to, anymore.”  
  
Santana frowned, so surprised by Brittany’s words that she looked up. “What do you mean?”  
  
Biting her lip, Brittany shuffled her weight from one foot to another. “You already cured my heartbreak.”  
  
“What?”  
  
Brittany looked away. “I don’t want my lover back anymore. I want you.”  
  
For a long moment, Santana could neither move nor speak, just staring at Brittany and seeing all her new-formed dreams come true.  
  
As the silence stretched, however, it was Brittany whose shoulders dropped.  
  
“I can take the potion,” she said. “If you’ve changed your mind about wanting me to. I don’t think getting over the second heartbreak would be as easy.”  
  
Santana finally regained her movement, swiftly picking up the cauldron and turning it around, the potion spilling over onto the cobbled stones of her kitchen floor.  
  
“Don’t you dare.”  
  
Brittany looked at the potion, then at Santana, then at the fire, and slowly, she began to smile again.  
  
“You didn’t need to spill it on the floor,” she said, closing the distance between them and taking Santana’s hand. “I know how you hate cleaning up.”  
  
Santana held onto Brittany’s hand, intertwining their fingers. “I’m going to love this one.”  
  
“That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” Brittany tilted her head. “Except sugar. Sugar’s a little sweeter than that.”  
  
Santana laughed, placing her free hand on Brittany’s jaw, and closed the distance between their lips.  
  
Later on, Brittany would tell her that the kiss was definitely the sweetest thing that had ever happened to her, including or not including sugar.


End file.
